The Spectacle Blog

Last week was tough on the White House. All they were trying to do was negotiate this nuclear arms deal with Iran, and everything just kept getting in the way. First, Hillary Clinton decides to take over a week to figure out what excuse would work best for her missing emails. Then, the Republicans decided to make a whole thing out of asking why the administration was openly negotiating a treaty with a terrorist state. Thankfully, the Secret Service was able inject some levity into an otherwise depressing state of affairs, or the White House might be led to believe their circumstances are not so rosy.

I must say that after reading Ross' article detailing his objections to Senator Tom Cotton's letter to Iran's leaders signed by him and 46 other Republican Senators leaves me perplexed.

Ross derides the Cotton letter in harsh terms throughout his piece. He begins by stating the letter "reminds us why the GOP can’t seem to get away from its reputation as having an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of political victory."

He then describes the letter as the "political equivalent of a football fumble" before proclaiming that it "plays into the caricature of Republicans as a party incapable of governing".

For good measure Ross also calls the letter an act of "self-destructive futility" and "a mistake in every important aspect" before concluding that Cotton is "playing directly into the hands of America's enemies, both foreign and domestic."

Lindsey Graham is about as far from a serious candidate for President as possible, but every once in a while you get a hint of something lurking just below the surface. It's not a good thing, necessarily, but enough of an inkling to realize that Lindsey Graham does indeed have a contingency plan if and when he is declared supreme benevolent dictator of this United States.

…[A]nd here is the first thing I would do if I were President of the United States: I wouldn’t let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We’re not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We’re not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

Greenspoon was an original member of Three Dog Night and was touring with them until earlier this year.

His keyboards can be heard in such Three Dog Night classics like "One", "Mama Told Me Not to Come" and "Joy to the World".

On a personal note, I've had the opportunity to see Three Dog Night perform several times. Their music holds up quite well and they remain a very a good live band. It will be nearly impossible to replace him.

It's been all Clinton all the time in my news feed, so we're definitely due for a palate cleanser.

While we've all been reliving the most important sex scandal of the 1990s (outside of anything that happened on Beverly Hills: 90210), why shouldn't we also relive the most important sex scandal in the history of 2013? Anthony Weiner may have sworn off sexting women on Twitter, at least, as far as we know, in favor of just simply berating random people in the virtual space on rare occasions, but his DM partner-turned-adult film star Sydney Leathers has not similarly sworn off social media. And, thanks to Amazon receipts obtained by gossip website, The Dirty, we know that she's still in the same field: conducting virtual trysts with Democratic politicians.

Sydney Leathers is back. The woman at the center of former congressman Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) 2013 sexting scandal is at the center of another, this time with an Indiana state lawmaker.

I've heard more about the Logan Act from armchair political science scholars in my Facebook feed in two days than I heard in actual political science classes.

This is all because, apparently, a bunch of Senators who wrote a letter confirming that the Obama Administration couldn't unilaterly approve a nuclear technology treaty with Iran without first consulting Congress. Suddenly, they're "siding with hardliners" (as though there is anything but in Iran) and undermining the authority of the President (to do, what, exactly?), even though John Kerry himself admits that nothing hammered out with Iran is final or legally biding. As fantastic as the letter has been for Obama's standup comedy career, it does drive home the point that any agreement reached is temporary, at best.

If you found it hard to imagine that Bill Clinton was just sending loads of email to his wife, after she excused some of her missing private emails yesterday by noting that they were from the former President, you weren't alone. In fact, it seems Bill Clinton can't really remember much in the way of electronic communication with Hillary either.

The State Department may have initiated the request for Hillary's emails, but it seems they weren't overly specific in terms of what they were looking for. Their oversight may end up testing the boundaries of the Freedom of Information Act.

The Associated Press filed a lawsuit today in an attempt to force the State Department to release certain key emails authored or in the possession of one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Apparently, the AP has been filing FOIA request after FOIA request for years, seeking a response, and the State Department has been reticent to address them. One such FOIA request has been languishing for five years. And so, in light of Secretary Clinton's statements on the subject (including that 30,000 of her emails are now lost to the "brown file"), they're taking their request to the courts.

How amusing to see what the Clintons have been up to. We’ve all been there before, but what I especially like is the reaction from the Left. I recall what they said after Bill left the White House, amidst the corrupt pardons and the attempt to steal George W. Bush’s thunder with a very public party during his inauguration. “We’ll never trust them again,” the Left told us. “We’ve learned our lesson. You were right. They’re lying scum.” As indeed they are. But I’d give the Hillary email scandal a half-life of 12 minutes, after the Left realizes that they’re the only game in town for them.

Do you remember Barry Goldwater? The sainted junior Senator, Jim Buckley? They were the people from our side who delivered the message to Richard Nixon that it was quittin’ time. And are we to think that they, the noblest Republicans of all, were merely patsies?

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